


Dysfunctional

by Lulzy (likelolwhat)



Series: For the Love of a Meme [7]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Absent Parent, Bureaucracy, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Innuendo, Community: skyrimkinkmeme, Daedric Artifacts, Deathhounds, Eola is really creepy, Gen, Hearthfire DLC, I'ma go hide nao, Imperials won, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Meaningful Names of Meaningfulness, Pathetic Normal, Sibling Rivalry, Skyrim Kink Meme, Smart Kids, Swearing, The Things People Put In Their Trophy Rooms, also, as. pets., in front of children, mentions of other DLCs, mentions only though, social work, someone is a werewolf, surrounded by Badass Specials, the DB is a very scary guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:11:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2582585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelolwhat/pseuds/Lulzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angelica Laguardia, social worker with the Imperial Department of Domesticity, Children and Families Division, pays a visit to the Dragonborn's house. Predictably, chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> De-anoning from the skyrimkinkmeme, [this prompt](http://skyrimkinkmeme.livejournal.com/4941.html?thread=10144589#t10144589).

Angelica trudged up the mountain path, notebook tucked under one arm. The house she was to visit was close to Falkreath, without being too close to the bastion of death, and she'd heard it had a lovely view of the lake from where it straddled the pass. She was optimistic; both because she expected an uneventful house-call as far as her job went and also because she was going to meet the Dragonborn. The legendary savior of them all!

She came over the rise and saw the house — and the view. It was a big house, of course it had to be to be worthy of the Dragonborn. There was a greenhouse on one wing, and a tower of some sort on the other. The trees had been cut away to the northwest to provide a shot of the sparkling Lake Ilinalta below. If only she could paint...

_Focus, Angelica,_ she thought, and climbed the porch to knock firmly on the front door.

Silence. She couldn't even hear anyone moving inside. Were they all gone on holiday? What about the servant — er, housecarl? She'd sent that letter months ago, they should have known that the home visit wasn't optional...

Just as she was about to knock again, or start yelling that she wasn't going away, the door was flung open and a hassled, unkempt Breton — or... Reachwoman? That warpaint wasn't any Breton style that she knew of — stood there, breathing heavily.

Angelica started back, momentarily speechless. The Reachwoman stared, her one eye raking up and down Angelica's body. Goodness, she knew she was plump but that wasn't any reason to look at her like that! Then she realized that the look in the door-answerer's eye wasn't one of disgust, but... lust? There was a distinct hunger in that eye... Angelica fidgeted. She was here for her job. No distractions allowed.

"Rayya!" the Reachwoman suddenly barked. Angelica thought she was talking to _her_ for a moment, before the other continued, "come up here a sec! Got a... _guest_." Her face broke into a wide, if unsettling, grin.

"Dinner guest?" came another woman's voice from somewhere within. "It's not even noon yet!"

"I don't know, but you take what shows up at your door, yeah?" the Reachwoman replied.

"I'm not here for dinner," Angelica said nervously. She had no idea what the two of them were on about, but she had the distinct impression that it was neither enjoyable for her nor sanctioned by the Eight's Temple. "I'm a social worker." She tried to peer over the Reachwoman's shoulder, but the other shifted, blocking her view.

"A _social worker?!_ " The woman who must be Rayya appeared in the doorway, and now Angelica had utterly no hope of seeing into the depths of the house. Rayya was a tall Redguard wearing the traditional face-encircling scarf-hood of the Alik'r Desert. She was pretty, but Angelica really, really didn't like the look in her eyes. Not as much as she didn't like the still-unnamed Reachwoman's lustful stare, though.

"I, er, yes. Angelica Laguardia, social worker with the Imperial Department of Domesticity, Children and Families Division, here for a home visit."

"Er, okay..." The Reachwoman deflated. "I'm Eola, the steward of this place. Rayya's the housecarl. So, what gives? This's awfully short notice, just showing up at the door."

_Odd_. "You were supposed to have gotten the letter explaining this months ago...?"

The two women looked at each other, twin unreadable expressions on their faces. "I didn't get any letter," Eola said, shrugging. The lust was slowly receding from her eye.

Angelica huffed. "That courier swore he was the fastest, most reliable one in Skyrim. I guess not."

Rayya's eyes widened, but what for Angelica didn't know, until Eola said, "Oh! Er, yeah! We, um, _found_ a dead guy over there—" she pointed vaguely, "—a couple months ago. Nord, ginger? Yeah, I think bandits got him."

"Yes! Bandits!" Rayya echoed, face red as a tomato.

"Anyway, he didn't have anything on him so we just sent him over to Falkreath to be buried!"

Angelica stood there bemusedly, only a faint, "Oh," escaping her lips. _What in Oblivion...?_

"So!" Eola clapped her hands. "Come on in, I guess." She turned around and went into the house, leaving the door open.

Rayya waved Angelica inside with a heavy sigh. "I'll see if I can go get—"

"TORVAR!" Eola screamed, standing at the door from the entry to the rest of the house with her hands on her hips. A faint groan followed by a thump echoed through the house just as Angelica's ears stopped ringing, and Eola turned back towards them with a grin. "He'll be down soon," she said sweetly.

"—my Thane's husband," Rayya finished, voice heavy with suffering.

The pounding of paws on hardwood was the next assault to Angelica's poor ears, and two black, four-legged _things_ appeared from the back room. They pelted across the main hall in a manner of a second and skittered around Eola's legs before the social worker could get out a thought beyond, _What the hell are those?_ , and launched themselves at the new scent. Angelica screeched and fell back as the two things were upon her, heavy bodies pinning her down, drool dripping on her cheeks, long gnashing teeth inches from her face—

"CuSith, Garmr!" Eola said, laughing. "Off!"

The... _things_ gave one last lick each to her cheeks and moved away, disappearing somewhere in the main hall.

Rayya shook her head, but even she looked amused as Angelica lay there, shaking. "Sorry about that. My Thane's... dogs... have to greet everyone new."

They were _like_ dogs, but... _not_ dogs. Not even close. The red eyes and the cold breath... she shivered. _Not dogs at all._ Rayya grabbed her arm, more pulling her up than helping. Eola had disappeared somewhere, but as Rayya led her into the main hall, Angelica soon forgot all about the steward.

Artifacts. Many weapons, a few pieces of armor, the rest miscellaneous in form — most sharp and all dangerous, very obviously radiating Daedric influence from every corner of the house she could see. She recognized the Masque of Clavicus Vile along with the Ebony Mail and Spellbreaker, all three on a mannequin like they belonged there. Azura's Star lay on the mantlepiece, pulsing with light from the core to the tips of the spikes. The warped, screaming faces of the Wabbajack looked at her from a weapon stand along with what appeared to be the Ebony Blade and Volundrung. And— oh, _Divines_ , was that a book with a cover made from mers' skins on the shelf, sitting with _A Dance in Fire_ and _Songs of the Return_ like it _belonged_ there? She shuddered in revulsion and was about to bolt, to run screaming back to Falkreath — no, all the way to the Imperial City! — and report to her superiors with this, but Rayya's hand on her arm tightened dangerously, warningly, and all she managed to do was emit a squeak.

"Shh," Rayya said, and managed to be the exact opposite of soothing. By the Divines, she had walked into a madhouse.

"Ray, what...?" A man who managed to be even more disheveled than Eola appeared at the top of the stairs to the next level, blinking down at them with bloodshot eyes. He swayed on his feet, but he managed to get down the steps with the pseudo-grace of a lifelong drunk. "Oh... hi," he slurred once he was no longer in danger of sliding down on his head. "Yous must be... fo' dinner. Hic."

"No, I am not here for dinner!" she said, fed up with these constant references to spending more time with this 'family' than she had to. "I need to see the children, please. I am Angelica Laguardia, social worker with the Imperial Department of Domest—"

"O _fuck_ ," said the drunk, looking up, where two little girls had appeared on the stairs. "Sisshel, Brit— Brit— just get down here."

The two girls who were probably sisters raced down the stairs, but were only halfway there when Sissel, in the lead, tripped over Brit-something's stuck-out foot and nearly fell. Instead she stumbled against the railing and caught herself while Brit-whatever took the lead and alighted on the main hall's floor with a flourish. Sissel righted herself and jumped onto her sister's back from above with a ferocious war cry, knocking them both to the floor where they rolled around pulling each other's hair and snarling like beasts.

"Um..." Angelica started, but Rayya stepped in before she had to.

"Sissel! Britte! Stop that, now!"

They paused in their fight, Sissel sitting on Britte's chest and Britte's hand around Sissel's neck, and glared at the housecarl. "Not our Da!" they said in unison, and went back to their scuffle.

"Oh, Morwha's tits," mumbled Rayya under her breath. She looked pointedly at Torvar.

"Wha...?"

Rayya tilted her head towards the children, raising her eyebrow meaningfully. She still hadn't let go of Angelica's arm.

"Ohh. Yeah! Girls! Whattevvver she said."

Sissel and Britte drew apart, nursing their wounds — which consisted of two tender scalps, three black eyes and an assortment of bruises between them — and chanting, "Yes, Dad."

"Goodsh. Now, Ray— whattis goin' on here agen?"

"Come on, Torvar," said Eola, emerging from what appeared to be a kitchen on the right. "Why don't you sit down? Miss Angelica here is just going to talk to the kids, take a tour, make sure we're all good here, right? _Right?_ " The last word was directed at Angelica herself, who shuddered and nodded and began to think that maybe this Reachwoman would track her down if she said a thing to her superiors after all. Or maybe she'd never get out of this madhouse, and she would become one of them. _Gulp_.


	2. Part Two

She sat the kids down one at a time in the greenhouse — the only place in the entire manor with only one door where she could see that door easily — speaking to them as gently as possible but only really finding out that Britte hated Sissel, Sissel hated Britte just as much, and, oh yeah, their new dad the Dragonborn had killed their old dad the farmer.

"Wait, _what?_ " She hadn't thought— she had realized, of course, that the Dragonborn had to have been the one to bring back all those Daedric artifacts and put them on display in his house, but to think that he had murdered the girls' father and raised them as his own afterward? What kind of man _did_ that?

"Da told my old man not to hurt us anymore, but he didn't stop yelling at us, so Da..." Sissel drew a finger across her own neck. "And took us away in the night, like a prince or something!" Her starry-eyed expression made Angelica wince. But she was starting to see how maybe the Dragonborn could have thought he was justified.

Until Sissel piped up again. "I hear Da left our old house a mess and the guards couldn't find our father's head for a long time, whatever that means."

_Oh, Mara... look down upon this child with mercy.._. Feeling like her stomach was trying to fight its way out of her body through her mouth, she just sat back and tried to breathe.

"Anyway, I'm really grateful that Da saved us, even if he isn't around a lot. But Dad's really funny and sings to us all the time, and Rayya is so strong and beautiful and Eola's such a good cook too!"

_Great. The drunk is funny. Just what a child needs..._ "Ahem. Moving on. You mentioned that your Da isn't here very often...?"

"No. He's off saving the world all the time. I understand. The world has to come first."

"Saving the world?" _How many things are threatening the_ world _all the time that you can't see your own kids?_

"Yeah. He killed that evil big black dragon in Sovngarde, and now the other dragons don't bother us as much at all anymore. Then he stopped a bunch of evil vampires from taking over, but saved a really nice good vampire and put her in charge of the remainder so they don't cause any more problems, then he went somewhere far away because someone was trying to kill him and saying he was a fake Dragonborn, and he found out that a Daedric Prince was behind the whole thing! I think he's off in Solitude now, helping train the new soldiers that started coming in when he won the war!"

It was quite the list, and if the child told true her Da was every bit the legend Angelica had heard him to be. She had heard that Alduin had been defeated, of course. Everyone had heard the rumble from the Throat of the World when the Greybeards and the remaining dragons spoke the Dragonborn's name and proclaimed him a true Hero, like the Nerevarine in Morrowind and the Last Champion of Cyrodiil before him.

And of _course_ she had heard of the Imperial victory in the war, everyone knew that who was an Imperial citizen — probably even everyone who didn't live in the remote jungles of Valenwood or Black Marsh. It was why she was even here, after all. Imperial victory meant Imperial control meant Imperial bureaucracy in Skyrim once again, and no province could escape the Department of Domesticity, Children and Families Division. Not a single one. High Rock was notorious for its lax rules with regards to social workers, but even though every once in a while one particularly nosy inspector turned up dead in a drainage ditch, well, that didn't mean they were exempt either. Nope.

She was a woman on a mission, and even if that mission ended up killing her, even if she had to drag the all-mighty Dragonborn down into the dirt to do it, she would make sure these children were safe. Thus resolved, she said simply, "Are you happy?

Sissel thought on this for a moment, far longer than she should have. Angelica was beginning to despair when she tilted her head back up straight and said, "Yes. I am. Even though Britte drives me crazy and is really mean, I know my Da and Dad love me and will make sure Eola doesn't eat me."

"Eola? Why would Eola eat you— oh. OH. _OH_." She had seen the ring on the woman's finger, but hadn't thought — how could he have a cannibal as — as a _steward?!_

_The same way he could have a drunk as a husband_ , she thought sadly. She knew what had happened to her courier, now. He had probably knocked on the door, Eola had answered, and she had decided she was feeling a bit peckish. Her stomach turned.

"Oh, I shouldn't have said that!" Sissel cried, clapping her hands over her mouth. "No, please, don't take me away! My Da loves me, I swear, and Dad too, and Rayya and CuSith and Garmr and — and even Eola! Especially Eola! She wouldn't eat me even if she was really mad at me, I know she wouldn't. Never..." she trailed off, tears flowing down her cheeks, and sniffed piteously.

Angelica stared at her, thinking. Could she really do this if the kid was happy? Despite how the situation looked? Britte had said much the same thing, even pointing out that having a very intimidating man for a father had forced her to rethink things and stop beating Sissel up quite so much. That had made Angelica wince at the time, as bad means to good ends were just as awful as bad means to bad ends, but now she thought back on that conversation of a half-hour prior and it made her hesitate. Maybe should she could just make some recommendations, maybe not even mention the Daedric artifacts everywhere, the kids obviously weren't affected by the darkness that seeped from them as she was.

Maybe they never would be. She didn't know that much about the Daedric Princes, not anymore. She had studied them as a teenager, wanting to become a conjurer like her older brother Desdemono, but that had fallen flat when she showed utterly no aptitude for magic. Or swordplay, which she tried next, or sneaking around quietly, or even swinging blindly in a target's general direction. She could not put two ingredients together and make a potion to save her life, and she could not string together _two words_ , by Mara, without tripping over her own tongue and making herself the fool. So she had gone into the bureaucracy, desperate to make a difference, a mark on the world somehow. She had thought it would be easy. That she would save children from evil parents, reward the good ones, and that she would be her own kind of hero. All without a fancy sword or spells to sling.

And for a while, the job had proved to be exactly that. She had gone out to some falling-down shacks in Riften, to the manors of Solitude too, and had while she had found things she had not expected — namely, that some people could be horrible creatures much like the mudcrabs they put down every day — she had never been conflicted about whether to report or not. Unlike now. With the Dragonborn's kids.

"Please," Sissel whispered. Barely able to hear, Angelica thought she had made the quiet plea up at first. But then, when she did not answer, the child gave a great _hi-hic_ and started sobbing again.

"There, there," she said awkwardly. While she loved children, and wanted her own, she couldn't talk to one any better than she could an adult. "I just need to do a tour and then I'll leave. I don't want you will be sad, Sissel, and I think taking you away will make you sad, won't it?" The girl nodded, snot dripping from her nose. "I know it will. I will try to — I _always_ take that into account, you know. I'm not trying to be mean, but this—" she waved her hand about vaguely, to indicate the whole sorry state of affairs, "can't happen, you know? It's not right. I can make some suggestions, though. And maybe your folks will follow through. I really hope they do. And then we will go from there. No matter what, I just want what is best for you, okay?"

A pause. Sissel had quieted during Angelica's speech (the longest she had made out loud, ever, she realized) but did not reply, just continued to stare at the floor by her feet. Her small shoulders trembled minutely with every breath.

"Okay?" Angelica prompted.

"Okay." Her voice was small, defeated, and Angelica knew the child was more aware than she had thought, and not as easily mislead as most children her age. She was far, far smarter than Angelica had given her credit for.

"All right then. That's okay," she said and stood up abruptly, wanting to leave before _she_ started crying too. She left without another word, shutting the door to the greenhouse behind her. Sighing, she leaned up against it for a moment while she held her head in her hands. Then she looked up.

Rayya, Torvar, Eola, and Britte, with CuSith and Garmr lying at their feet, were arranged in a tense half-circle of chairs facing the door.


	3. Part the Final

"Er," she said, as the entire family stared at her, eyebrows raised. Even Britte, sitting on Eola's lap, was looking at her with a very serious expression. "Umm..."

"I don't want to leave," Britte blurted out into the ensuing silence.

"I'm not taking you away yet," she replied automatically. The group tensed even more, the dogs-not-dogs starting to growl, and she started inching for the front door. "I didn't mean, er... I didn't mean it like that," she stammered. "I meant that I don't think there's a need to take anyone away anywhere yet, and— I'm sorry, where is your bathroom?"

No one answered her, just glared in silence, and she started shaking even worse. Eola was licking her lips, one eye raking up and down Angelica's body again, and now that she knew that the look was one of hunger, not lust, she felt all the more queasy.

Then, slowly, two women and one girl turned as one to look at Torvar. He was still quite drunk, but closer to being sober at least, and it only took him a second to realize what they all were looking at him for. He cleared his throat, breaking the silence, and said, "Rayya, Eola, stay here with Britte for a second, will ya?" and got up from his chair. He went to the door leading back into the greenhouse, shot one last unreadable look at Angelica, threw it open and disappeared. The sound of heavy Falkreath lumber slamming against the frame echoed throughout the house. Angelica stood there, pressed against the wall next to the door, but could not hear a bit of what was happening within. Apparently the house had been soundproofed at some point — no wonder she'd thought no one had been home at first.

The women sat (and stood) there in silence for a moment, before Eola let Britte down to the floor and stood up. Rayya stood up too, scimitars on her hips shifting with the movement, and Angelica truly thought she was going to die then. She was disappointed when, though her world tilted, she remained conscious.

But the family just turned their backs and set about rearranging the chairs. The dogs-not-dogs got up from the floor too and wound around Angelica once, snarling and growling while she stood paralyzed, then went to a plush rug in the opposite corner and lay down side by side, watching her.

Angelica looked back to find that Rayya and Eola had arranged the chairs so that one sat alone, with four facing it in a way reminiscent of testimony before a council, or when she reported to her division superiors. She gulped: the association was not a positive one for her as she hated being the sole focus of anything, much less an interrogation like this seemed to be.

An interrogation run by a warrior woman, a cannibal, and a little girl who beat up her younger and smaller sister all the time. She realized, for the first time in her life, how pathetic and utterly defenseless she was. It was a miracle she had made the short walk to Lakeview without being eaten by a wolf. By Mara, it was a miracle she had lived as long as she had, with no weapons skills, no magical aptitude, and not even the ability to walk normally without tripping over her own feet.

"Sit!" barked Rayya, and Angelica was in the lone chair before she could think to resist. That was the danger of being Imperial City-born and part of the bureaucracy: she had occupied a specific place in the hierarchy since she was born, and had deference to authority drilled into her until it was a part of her.

Again, she wondered how she hadn't died yet. If a thief with a commanding voice just told her to hand it over on the street, he wouldn't even have to pull a weapon. _Pathetic_. She fidgeted in the chair, fingers drumming automatically on the underside of the seat while her knuckles turned white from her death-grip.

Rayya and Eola took their seats on the far ends of the slightly curved row of chairs facing hers, Britte hopping into the Redguard's lap this time. The girl was a bit too big to be sitting on anyone, but Rayya didn't seem to mind, playing with Britte's braids.

The greenhouse door opened and Torvar walked in, holding Sissel in his arms. Her cheeks were tear-stained and her eyes red and puffy, but she wasn't crying anymore. She ignored Angelica as Torvar walked past her and took the chair next to Rayya, and steadfastly refused to meet her eyes even when sitting on her Dad's lap facing the Imperial.

The chair next to Eola remained empty. Angelica wondered a moment who it was for, before it hit her — the Dragonborn. Oh Divines, had they somehow contacted him? Was he riding out now to protect his children? It would take a while to get from Solitude to the manor, but... but he had tamed a dragon, hadn't he? Could ride it around like a big flying horse? How fast could a dragon fly — fast enough to get here before Eola got too hungry and decided to eat her, Dragonborn or no Dragonborn? She wasn't sure which was worse, waiting however many hours before being judged by an angry father who was able to kill her with a word, or being eaten by a cannibal immediately. She started praying again, asking for the Divine's forgiveness and a quick death.

She was paralyzed, she wanted to run, she knew she wouldn't get two steps before Rayya cut her down or Eola... did what cannibals did.

While Britte and Sissel watched. _Erk_.

She didn't want to keep thinking about her own imminent death — would it hurt? would her disappearance be noted? would the truth ever come out if she just... was never seen again after leaving Falkreath? — but it was impossible for her to steer her thoughts away. Like that one time she had ridden past a farmstead that had been attacked by a dragon, and she just couldn't stop staring at the burnt-out husk of a home, imagining the horrible things that had taken place there.

"So, Torvar—" Eola started at last. "What do you think? What would Lothario do?"

"Lothy would be pissed," Torvar said flatly, making Angelica flinch. He seemed fully sober now. "But he's not here and he won't be for a while. I guess I'll have to deal with this myself."

 _Lothario_. Angelica had almost forgotten the given name of the Dragonborn. He was just titles now. Lothario Nicchi was no more.

"So, Angelica Laguardia," Torvar said, his brusque Nord tongue bumping up against the smooth Imperial syllables awkwardly. "I hear you've been frightening my children, making them think we're horrible people. Abusers. Deviants. That my husband is some kind of loveless monster who sacrifices children to the Daedra..." his eyes flicked pointedly to the mace on a plaque near the hearth, the artifact that radiated the most evil influence of them all.

"I don't— I don't think it's like that, and I never said so!" Angelica protested. "You obviously love your children, and they love you. And their Da. They're not saying it just to say it either — they're smart kids. They genuinely like it here."

"But?" Torvar said with a raised eyebrow, face dangerously grim still.

"But— but— but I can't just let you leave all these Daedric things lying around!" she half-screamed, prising her own hands off the chair's edge and gesturing wildly. "They're dangerous! I can overlook the dogs — which are very obviously _not_ dogs, I'm not _stupid!_ — and the constant absence of one parent and the drunkenness and the fighting and— and maybe, _maybe_ even I can overlook the _cannibalism_." She hissed the word, staring at Eola, who seemed startled but not the least bit ashamed. "As long as it's not random upstanding citizens anymore, for Mara's sake!"

"He came to the front door!" the Reachwoman screeched. "How could I deny such a gift from Lady Namira?!"

"Enough, Eola," Torvar said, one hand going up to massage his temples. "There are plenty of bandits in Falkreath Hold; eat them. The world will be a better place."

"And the necromancers?"

"And the necromancers," Torvar replied wearily. "And the Silver Hand, what's left of them."

 _The werewolf hunters? What did they ever do to anyone— Oh. Someone here must be a werewolf. Of-fucking-course._ She didn't have any surprise left, it seemed.

Eola sat back, mollified for the moment, and Torvar turned back to Angelica. "So, if you think this, what do you plan to say in your report? Speak carefully, now."

"I... I think I would say that Sissel and Britte are doing well, considering their rough start in life," she said honestly. "I would say that the home is full of adults who love them, and that, despite being in the phase when everything becomes a fight of some kind, Sissel and Britte are still sisters, and sisters should stick together."

"That's nice. And the artifacts Lothario has been bringing home because there's no safer place in the world to keep them out of ill-meant hands?"

"I, um. Well, I don't have to say exactly what they are, do I? I can just write, umm... 'Parents are warriors and sometimes leave their weapons lying about where the children can get at them. Tips provided to buy warded locking cabinet.' Or something."

Torvar tilted his head, seeming to... yes, he was sniffing her. The drunk was the werewolf. _Great._ After a moment, he said slowly to Rayya and Eola, "Not deceitful."

" _Really?!_ " Angelica blurted out as the other women relaxed. The whole thing was a lie — she was talking about and giving an example of a _lie!_

"Not malevolently," Torvar amended.

 _Whatever that means_ , she thought. Not that she wasn't happy that she seemed to be out of the fire for the moment. "Er, okay. That's good. I just need to do a quick tour, make sure the house isn't about to fall down on top of you, then I guess I'll be off. You'll get a copy of my report by next week."

Eola smiled grimly. "Torvar's got your scent now..." she said ominously.

 _Oh, fuck._ Now she _really_ wasn't going to do anything stupid.

"Eola! Stop that." Torvar snapped, then let Sissel off his lap.

Britte hopped down too, and the girls approached Angelica cautiously. "So we're not going away?"

 _For children who apparently hate each other they sure do say the exact same thing at the exact same time a lot._ "Not if I can help it. I can't say the same for the next visit, but that shouldn't be for another three to five years given that I'm going to put 'no action needed' in my report."

"Good. Upstairs first, then? Coming back down for a sweep through the trophy room and kitchen, of course." Torvar said, shooing the girls outside.

He took Angelica on a brief tour, showing her the alchemy table with all manner of ingredients arranged neatly on a high shelf, and though there was deathbell, nightshade and what looked suspiciously like the jarrin root she'd seen in an illustration once, the toxic reagents were far out of reach of children and she dismissed it as a minor issue. Then the enchanting table — not a black soul gem in sight, good — and the bedrooms. While the living space was in chaos, things thrown everywhere and the beds unmade, Angelica ignored it as much as she could, looking instead for actual hazards. Finding none, she had Torvar take her back downstairs.

They went through the kitchen next, and if there were bags of some unidentifiable lumpy substance shoved to overflowing into the cabinet bottoms, she resisted the urge to look. She left as quickly as possible, a chorus of _eww, eww, eww_ chanting in her head.

Then, the last room in the house. She walked through the door ahead of Torvar, intending to just poke her head into the space and back out again. Just a glimpse would do—

But her glimpse was of gray, leathery skin stretched taut around the unnatural glowing blue eyes of a trophy draugr.

She screamed all the way back to Falkreath. But no matter how much the town guards pressed her, she insisted it had only been a close encounter with a troll, that everything was fine at the house of the Dragonborn — _**no, don't go looking for the troll! ******_— everything was fine, it was just she'd never seen one that _big_ before.

**Author's Note:**

> Told you there were Meaningful Names of Meaningfulness. Even the DB's, just in a different way. 'Lothario Nicchi' is, literally, "loud warrior seashell".


End file.
